I have an "until the bugfix hits" workaround for linux (and probably all) world-gen crashes, unfortunately it does involve removing something.
Toady said it was caused by a missing poetry refrain trying to be loaded or something, so I removed a bracket from all the [GENERATE_POETIC_FORMS] and was able to generate the crazy old 50~75 civs on a 33x33 map that I was doing on 40.24, though they do seem to be a good deal faster until about 120~150 years in.
Occasionally if you have several human towns start to grow past the + and * stages after around 110 years it can crash, but not sure I can pin down why.
Uh, if you put your starting instrument in your backpack and drop it you can wind up still holding it or have it disappear, though it can be seen if you view it with the lookaround cursor, no tile visible though, and you can't pick it back up.
Instruments can't be strapped to your body, but they also don't stress people out/lead to fights so that's not a problem.
There is no real link between what instrument you start with and what skills you have.
I can not figure out any way of making sure I can compose new choreography, though it seems odd to have legendary dancing skill and not be able to do that.
I can't figure out how to join a performance which is about to start, not sure if there was any intent to add that or not, it feels like a bug that everyone can join mine but I can't do the same, but that is probably a planned thing for somewhere down the line.
Prisoners frequently escape in dark fortresses and wander around with the "playing make-believe" tile, and indeed announcements show they are playing make-believe, not sure but I think that might be the saddest bug ever. "Ill just pretend I'm back home with mommy and daddy!"
Oh, and elves can't eat the bodies of their foes. The other civs not being able to do this is fine, I can work around it, but elves should be able to do it.